sumptas: sumptas . . . dignitates: "offices assumed"; dignitas throughout the Consolatio is the specific term for "public office." Adulescentia (the stage between pueritia and iuuentus) could extend as far as age 30 or so. Born c. 480 or shortly after, B. was consul in 510.dignitates: sumptas . . . dignitates: "offices assumed"; dignitas throughout the Consolatio is the specific term for "public office." Adulescentia (the stage between pueritia and iuuentus) could extend as far as age 30 or so. Born c. 480 or shortly after, B. was consul in 510.

lucis: here = "day."quantalibet: quantalibet . . . mole: "however great a mass."ingruentium: < ingruo, "assail, fall upon."mole: quantalibet . . . mole: "however great a mass."duos pariter consules liberos tuos: in 522, just before B.'s rise to the post of magister officiorum. For two westerners to hold the consulship together was unusual at this time; two from the same family had not done so since 395 A.D. This is a sign that B. had friends in high places at Constantinople, where final decisions about the consulship were taken.alacritate: "exuberant enthusiasm."curules: sc. sellas, the official consular chairs; object of insidentibus.regiae laudis: The biographical note about B. in the Ordo Generis Cassiodororum fragment specifies that this speech was in honor of Theoderic (who did not come closer to Rome than Ravenna after one ceremonial visit in 500) rather than the emperor Justin.in circo: the circus at Rome, as at Constantinople, was still the site of the games and shows that the consuls (or their wealthy and doting fathers) were expected to stage.duorum medius consulum: "in the middle [between] two consuls."triumphali: i.e., on a scale worthy of an imperator's triumph.